


Chosen

by whatdoyouthinkmyjobis



Series: Hunters on the Hellmouth [54]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bickering, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, Death, F/M, Non-Consensual Voyeurism, Oral Sex, Original Character Death(s), Overdosing, Religion, Sex, Suicide, Trouble In Paradise, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-24
Updated: 2018-02-24
Packaged: 2019-03-22 19:59:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13771443
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatdoyouthinkmyjobis/pseuds/whatdoyouthinkmyjobis
Summary: Caleb has come with a message.





	Chosen

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by events in BTVS 7.15 “Get It Done” and 7.18 “Dirty Girls.” Chapter 34 took place around Buffy’s birthday in mid-January. This chapter opens a few days before Valentine’s Day then jumps ahead to the beginning of March.

Buffy had his pants unzipped before he could find the right key. Pinning her arms above her head and her body against the door, Dean growled, “You wanna do it right here?”

She licked her lips and pouted. “You promised me a bed.”

In the month since Potentials had spilled over into his apartment, Dean and Buffy had resorted to sneaking around like teenagers from the teenagers. The rising exodus out of the city meant they could steal away into any one of his boss’ empty properties, although they usually lacked even no-tell motel amenities.

Fortunately, this apartment had been abandoned with everything in it.

They pushed their way inside, tripping over emptied drawers and forgotten trinkets as they added their clothes to those strewn about the floor.

Buffy stretched out on the bed, lust-drunk and ready, her skin creamy, tan lines faded for the winter. Dean stared so long, she poked him with her foot and laughed. He didn’t care; he wanted to remember every inch of her. Starting with her toes, he kissed his way up one leg and down the other. Sex had always been the perfect way to clear his mind of the mess of his life, but even now, her legs wrapped around him, he couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d dragged with him to Sunnydale. The mess he’d brought to her. He tried to hold her hips still as she writhed against his mouth.

 _She didn’t understand. How could she?_ An angel. An archangel. There was nothing they could do to stop Lucifer. He and Sam were right back where they were months prior with the Devil on their backs. Only this time, he was dragging the woman he loved into the fire with him. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to thank Cas or punch him for the opportunity to know Buffy.

She wriggled down until her body joined his. He moaned, “Let it out, darlin’. Whole buildin’s ours.” His orgasm shuddered through him as he listened to her shout, her excitement and her release overcoming her at once.

A satisfied grin took over her face as she laid back on the bed, her hair a golden halo on the pillow, but he wasn’t finished. Time alone was becoming more rare, and he didn’t want to miss a moment with her. He caressed her legs and drew little patterns on her neck with his tongue as they waited to go again.

“Friday is Valentine’s Day,” Buffy said.

Unsure of where she was going, he continued kissing her.   

“Normally, I’d be all about flowers, chocolate and the sappiest of sappy romanticness, but I think this holiday is gonna have to go the forgotten way of Christmas and our birthdays. When the whole Lucifer thing is done, you owe me so many flowers.”

“Flowers. Got it.”

“We’re talking Rose Bowl Parade levels of flowers.”

Dean chuckled into her body. He worried everyday would be their last, while his girlfriend believed in this Valentine’s Day and the one after.

“What?”

He didn’t want to tell her she couldn’t win this fight. She was an astounding person, but she was only one person. The Potentials were nowhere near ready, often injured, and were unable to stem the tide of vampires taking over the town. If they were going to go down, he wanted to leave the light of hope alive in her eyes. “I’ve never measured a relationship in months, let alone years.”

“That’s because I’m better than those other girls.”

“Hell yes.”

She stared at him as if trying to see through him to his future self, his inner thoughts. “So, I was thinking maybe when this Lucifer stuff is all over, we could –”

The front door banged open, sending Buffy scrambling for something to cover herself. Dean had changed the locks after the tenants fled. He had the only key in town.

A scrawny man with thinning hair and a dirty shirt wandered into the bedroom. “You the screamer?” he asked, hand in his pants. His tongue lolled from his mouth as he stared at Buffy.

“Get out of here, fucking pervert!” Dean yelled.

The man smirked. “Or what? You’ll call the cops? You don’t live here.”

In a flash, Dean had the man by his dirty collar and thrust his head through the bedroom window. When his skin started to smoke, Dean pushed the rest of the vampire’s body through the frame. He was a fireball when he hit the ground, exploding in a puff of smoke.

Buffy stood beside Dean breathless and wide-eyed. “How did you know he was a vampire?”

“He knew we didn’t live here.”

“What if he was just a squatter?!”

Dean shrugged. “One less pervert in the world? Let’s get some stakes outta the car an’ see if we got a nest. Goddamn vampires.”

“Okay, but you should maybe put on some pants.”

* * *

 

By March, nearly three months after Giles had arrived with the first Potentials, the Scoobies had found their groove. New arrivals went through orientation without causing a blip in the house’s schedule. Willow’s students were able to send pencils (and other small wooden projectiles) flying with magic. Sam, Dean and Spike had trained most of the girls on how to throw and dodge a punch. Xander and Andrew kept them in food and toiletries. Even Anya enjoyed giving her regular lecture on demons.

“And that’s why demons are misunderstood,” Anya said with a big smile to the cluster of recent arrivals.

Xander shook his head. He had explained to her multiple times that since many of the girls had been completely in the dark about the supernatural world, maybe her introduction to demons speech wasn’t the best place to push for demon equality.

“I don’t want to raise an army of close-minded children, Xander,” she had scoffed. “Next thing you know they’ll be picketing movie theaters and reprimanding me for enjoying sex. Do you want to live in that world?”

Six girls had arrived at the house in the last two days. To Xander’s relief, this crew all spoke English to some degree. When they didn’t, they had to rely on one of the girls or a magic Winchester-provided future-phone to translate. Even so, Gabi, the house’s most chipper girl, and one of their better fighters, had offered to help with their presentation. She was sidelined, recovering from a sprained ankle, her badge of honor when she rescued a green recruit from a vampire.

“Any questions?” Xander asked the half dozen new recruits.

A tall freckled girl with a shock of bleached curls said, “I have a question for Willow.” Willow’s Magic Is Real talk was the most popular part of Supernatural 101. “Can you teach me a love spell?”

The other girls giggled; the question had been on their minds, too. The first time someone had asked, Willow blushed. This time, she answered flatly, “No, Margo. Those things are bad news and rapey. Next.”

“Don’t forget this is about me,” added Anya, squinting at the girls with disapproval.

Upstairs, the footsteps of the non-patrolling Potentials quickened. There was a thud and a high-pitched squeal. Willow looked at the basement ceiling and sighed. “I’ll go make sure Andrew’s alive.”

A girl in a basketball jersey and long ponytail raised her hand.

“Willow doesn’t fly on a broomstick, and Harry Potter isn’t real,” Anya snapped.

“Tha-that wasn’t my question.”

“Oh, proceed, little girl!”

“Uh, Steph. My name’s Steph. I wanted to know about angels.”

Anya stood stiff, her brain rejecting the question.

Xander plastered a smile on his face and shoved his trembling hands in his pockets. “Angels? Whataboutangels? Noonesaidanythingaboutangels.”

“I was thinking if demons are real, angels must be real too, right?”

His mouth froze. Buffy wanted to keep the angel angle hidden lest the girls panic, but the entire topic scared him too much to even lie.

“Where is God?” asked Rachel, a small girl in a big leather jacket. “‘As ‘e leeft us?”

“God! Haha!” Anya’s staccato laugh peppered the crowd with further doubt.

“We haven’t been abandoned,” said Gabi, smiling on the basement steps.

Lara, a pale girl with a broken nose, yanked up her shirt. An angry red gash crossed her stomach. “My Watcher was stabbed to death in front of me. I got away with this. If your God exists, I spit on him.”

“Look around you,” Gabi continued optimistically. “We’re surrounded by God’s chosen, and together we can defeat this.”

“‘God-God’s chosen?’ You think Buffy’s some sort of divine hand puppet?” Xander asked.

“Yes, of course. She fights evil. She was chosen.”

“That’s not how the Slayer works.”

“Besides, one girl fighting all the evil in the world sounds more like a sick punishment than a holy-rolling good time,” Anya said.

Gabi shook her head. “No one said it’s easy to serve God. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake–”

“Whoa!” said Margo. “Step off the religious fundamentalism!”

The girls began to argue over each other. Soon, the stampeding feet of the returning patrol squads thundered overhead. “Wanna go upstairs and see who’s bloody?” Xander whispered.

“Sounds sunny,” Anya replied.

* * *

 

It was dinner time at the Summers’s house, or as Xander called it, Thunderdome. Giles wasn’t familiar with the reference, but he imagined there was a good deal of pushing involved. They had solved the bathroom issue by spreading to neighboring, abandoned houses, but meals were still a logistical nightmare. Dinner was the worst as all of the girls who were sleeping at Xander’s or the Winchesters’s were over at Buffy’s for training.

Giles hung back until he was confident he could get a plate of spaghetti without a bonus elbow to the ribs. By this time, every square inch of possible dining space was taken. This despite the unseasonably warm weather drawing a few girls outside to eat. He didn’t mind standing, a nice contrast to all of his hours cramped on planes. Tonight, he leaned against the bookcase in the living room.

At the study table nearby sat Buffy and Willow. It was Willow’s first official day of spring break, and she chattered rapidly about the spells she hoped to work on with her tiny coven of magic-inclined Potentials.

Buffy nodded. Buffy smiled. Her eyes stayed distant.

“Excuse me,” Dawn said, reaching past Giles to get a couple of books. She tucked them under her arm and headed upstairs to the bedroom she had to give up whenever he was in town. Research was her refuge from the Slayer business around her. The talk of destiny. The talk of after-Buffy.

“Hey, Giles!” Sam was seated in the floor nearby with Ella and Alma, two of Willow’s trainees. “I finished entering all those books.”

“Thank you, Sam,” Giles said. “Did you come across anything particularly interesting?”

Sam shrugged. “I know a lot about magic roots now. Plant roots, not history roots.”

Most of the knowledge the Watchers Council had amassed over millenia was destroyed in the explosion. As Giles traveled the world gathering Potentials, he also collected as many books and scrolls as he could. Books and scrolls that Sam then, somehow, put into his computer. While Giles did not understand the technicalities of this database, he was pleased knowledge could be better retained for the future.

He was less pleased that Sam had transcribed two books and three scrolls in two days. It had been six weeks since Giles had helped Sam’s girlfriend – ex-girlfriend – and her aunt settle in England, hopefully safe from Lucifer. As far as Giles knew, she’d made no effort to contact Sam in that time, and the young man tended to his broken heart by staying up all night with research. Giles made a mental note to spread the books out; he didn’t need Sam burning himself out.

Two of the Potentials picked up their now-empty plates and left the table. Giles took a seat across from Buffy. A minute later, Dean sat beside her. She didn’t seem to notice either of them.

Gabi, with Cloé in tow, rushed up to their table. Giles liked the girl. She was a bright spot among all the frightened and posturing Potentials. Since she’d arrived around Christmas, even her perpetual shadow Cloé seemed hopeful about their chances. “Hola, Buffy! Can we ask you something?”

Buffy, disarmed by Gabi’s beaming smile, replied with an, “Uh, okay?”

“Great! So Ash Wednesday is this Wednesday, and St. Agnes’ is having a special youth Mass that day. It’s right on the way to your house from the school. Can we go?”

Buffy’s mouth hung open in confusion for a moment. “You’re this excited about _church_?”

“Mass. It’s a holy day!” Gabi explained jubilantly. “I thought it could be a morale boost for those of us who are devout to be able to celebrate together. It’s been months since I’ve been to Mass. Please?”

Buffy twisted her mouth as she thought. “How long will you be there, and how many girls will be with you?”

Gabi’s grin grew. “Maybe an hour? We’ll be home before dinner! I haven’t asked people yet, but I was hoping maybe twenty. Would any of you want to come?” she asked the table.

Willow drew back. “Kinda not my thing.”

Dean shook his head.

“Church sounds nice,” said Naomi shyly, “but I’m not Catholic.”

“That’s okay! We take anyone for Ash Wednesday,” Gabi said.

Naomi nodded. “I’ll think about it.”

“Baptist and no,” said Keisha before taking another bite of garlic bread.

“Jabulela, would you like to attend Ash Wednesday mass with Gabi?” Giles asked in French to the girl at the end of the table. Jabulela was a nun after all; although he had yet to ascertain if that was out of devotion to God or fear of the war raging in Congo, her home.

The girl looked up from her plate and smiled at Gabi.

“At least three!” Gabi said.

“I want a final head count on Tuesday,” Buffy said with a slight hint of Joyce in her voice. “And you can’t go anywhere but straight to church and back. The nun will tell on you. In French, but she’ll spill.”

“Yes!” Gabi grabbed Cloé by the hand and disappeared to find more girls.

“Maybe I should go with them?” Dean said quietly.

Buffy turned to look at him for the first time. “Did you suddenly find God? Because you told me he was missing.”

“Nah, I just don’t like the idea of them going somewhere without one of us. How long ago was it that Astrid got vesselized?”

“It’s a whopping three blocks away, Dean. It’s church.” She picked up her plate and muttered, “But thanks for second guessing me. Not like I don’t have forty kids doing that already.”

Willow shrugged apologetically at Dean.

Giles would need to speak with Buffy soon. He’d stood by her through high school, her mother’s death and seemingly annual apocalypses. Sometimes her knees shook. Sometimes her voice cracked. But she soldiered on. She fought against the darkness and won.

Except once. Once her eyes were detached like this. When they’d tried to outrun Glory and the Knights of Byzantium. Then she was one defeat from going catatonic.

That darkness was in her eyes again.

* * *

 

On Wednesday, the girls gathered in front of St Agnes’. The church was a Spanish-style mission, much smaller than the grand buildings Gabi was used to in Mexico City. Still, the sight of it was familiar, comforting. She had not attended Mass since arriving in America nearly two months ago, and she did not want God to think she’d grown arrogant.

Gabi was disappointed in the turnout –Cloé, Fernanda, Naomi, and Jabulela. Lys, a confessed atheist, had reluctantly come along to translate for Jabulela. She was not used to such godless people. It wasn’t that she thought everyone on the planet was Catholic, or even that everyone should be. Rather, she was shocked to discover how little the other girls thought about the cosmic, the divine, now that they knew they’d been chosen by God.

Weeks ago, she had tried to broach the topic with Buffy, who had blown her off with a flippant, “I’ll believe in God when he starts helping.” The Winchesters, Willow, Giles, all of the others acted like she’d said nothing at all. Spike was the only person who seemed to think about these things, though his opinion of Heaven was fuzzy. He was nice. A little odd, but nice.

“You fasting anything?” asked Naomi as she helped Gabi hobble up the steps to the heavy wood doors.

“We’ve been taken from our families,” said Cloé sadly. “That kind of feels like enough.”

The sanctuary was lit solely by candles, appropriately somber for the holy day. The rich scent of incense mixed with the smoke. A dozen or so teens were already kneeling in prayer towards the back. Gabi and the other girls chose seats near the altar.

The priest at the altar was young, maybe only thirty. His hair was a soft brown devoid of grey. He flashed the girls and easy smile. When he spoke, it was in a honeyed Southern drawl.  “These ashes represent a broken relationship, betrayal and death. Come. Receive what the Almighty has for you.”

“Hello, girls,” he said as they lined up in the aisle. “Et pater filium deposuit, et filio ejus, et conteret creaturae.”

Jabulela was first, her rosary wrapped around her wrist. Lys waved the priest’s hand away. “I’m just here to translate.”

The priest dipped his fingers in the ashes, smudged a cross on the girl’s head, and said, “Remember that you are nothing, and to nothing you shall return. There shall be no resurrection.”

“Quelle?” Jabulela studied the priest’s face and slowly backed away. Gabi was not familiar with this version of the rite either.

“You believe you are chosen – special – but you’re filthy cogs in a machine with just as much understanding. You don’t even know who you serve. He is here to burn the earth of your likeness.”

“Wow, nice god you got,” Lys muttered.

In a flash, the priest lashed out at Lys. She cried out sharply. A warning. Blood gushed around her fingers, splayed over her stomach.

“Do not compare Him to that waste of a father.” He grabbed Fernanda by the throat and held her aloft. The girl kicked and whimpered as Lys collapsed, the blood pooling around her. “For I have seen the light of the Lightbringer!

“In God’s image you were made, and His vanity will be your undoing!” he said. He snapped Fernanda’s neck.

Naomi screamed. Turning to run, she fell into the arms of one of the teens from the pews. The teen bared his fangs and bit her.

Jabulela, Cloé and Gabi dashed toward a door on the side of the sanctuary. Gabi’s ankle shot white pain through her leg. A vampire grabbed her by the hair. “NO!” Jabulela shouted, shoving the vampire off.

The girls slammed the door shut on a vampire’s arm. Turning to the room, they saw it was the priest’s office. The priest was slumped at his desk, a blackish bite on his neck, his skin as white as paper.

Cloé trembled. “God has forgotten us!”

Gabi shoved a chair under the door. “Look, we just have to get outside. The vampires can’t follow us in the sun.”

“The-they’re dead!” Cloé cried.

Bodies pounded against the door.

“They’re martyrs,” Gabi said.

The door frame started to splinter.

Jabulela shook the windows, but the old locks had been painted over too many times. Unfazed, she picked up a chair and smashed the stained glass. “Pardonne-moi.” She pulled her cardigan off, using it to clear the shards in the frame before climbing through.

A vampire broke through the door. Cloé grabbed a brass cross from the desk.

Gabi flashed to the window when Jabulela wailed. In the yard, a Bringer stood over her limp, bloody body.

The priest sauntered in, knocking the cross from Cloé’s hand. “You think I’m a filthy vampire? Child, I am a prophet.”

Gabi grabbed Cloé’s hand. The sharp smell of piss filled the air.

The priest crouched in front of them with a hungry smile. “I need one of you to take a message to the Slayer. One of you.”

* * *

 

The Santa Barbara rock station faded out. Sunnydale’s had been nothing but static for a week. Dean shoved Motorhead in the stereo and frowned at the wilting lilies beside him. It would be another half hour before he got back to Buffy’s with supplies. _Stupid flowers._ An impulse buy while they were out, a half-remembered thought that she wanted those typical romantic gestures he felt so clumsy with. Maybe that was why Buffy had been so quiet for the last week? It didn’t make any sense, but he would try anything to get her talking again.

“Maybe roses instead, yes?” Rachel had noticed the flowers fading too. She was new to the house, only arrived three days prior from Israel, and small for fifteen. Since she was wearing a Zeppelin t-shirt, he thought he’d take her with him to the store. He needed someone to ride  shotgun with more knowledge of buying tampons than Sam.

Grocery shopping was mundane to the point of being surreal. From the bright, cheerful cereal boxes, to the mom who asked Dean how many children he had, everything had an air of artifice. Sixty miles to picket fences and apple pie. Sixty miles to safe nighttime strolls, a populated city, and sappy romantic gestures.

But he drove back to Sunnydale. As long as Buffy was there, so was he.

 _“I’m a lone wolf ligger / But I ain’t no pretty boy / I’m a backbone shiver / And I’m a bundle of joy,”_ he sang as Rachel played air guitar. She was all right.

A small figure stepped off the curb. Dean slammed on the brakes, sending the lilies crashing to the floor. The figure did not move.

A foot in front of the Impala, trembling and painted with blood, stood Cloé.

* * *

 

Instead of groceries, Dean had returned to Buffy’s with a Potential covered in blood. That had sparked a storm of wailing.

Twenty minutes later, their sobs still drifted up the stairs.

“‘Ow could dis ‘appen?”

“Where was Buffy?”

“Esa pude haber sido yo!”

“We need to leave. We’re not safe here!”

Buffy had left the Scoobies and a few of the more mature Potentials to calm everyone while she took stock of the weapons. They did not sound calmed.

“This isn’t your fault,” Giles reassured Buffy as she grabbed an extra axe from under her bed.

No one was actually sure what had happened. Cloé wasn’t speaking. Robin Wood confirmed the missing girls weren’t at the school. Spike and Dani were searching the neighborhood. Sam and Dean were on their way to St. Agnes’.

The corners of Buffy’s bedroom had coughed up three axes, two swords, five daggers, and six vials of holy water. _It’s not enough._

There were more weapons around the house, but that didn’t matter. She knew it in her bones. The weapons. The protection spells Willow had researched with Sam and Giles. None it it would keep the sobbing amateurs downstairs alive.

Buffy’s phone rang.

“Cops are all over the church,” said Dean. “Channel 2 is here.”

Buffy flew down the steps, turned on the television and shushed the girls as the reporter began. “A grizzly scene at St. Agnes’, where it appears Satanists surprised and murdered the faithful attending a special Ash Wednesday mass.”

“That’s him!” Cloé, screamed from the stairs. She was still dripping from her bath.

“Who?”

“The man by the ambulance! That’s the priest who–who…” The light in her eyes flickered out. “He killed everyone.”

The priest turned to the camera and smiled.

“Dean, get out of there as fast as you can,” Buffy  whispered before hanging up.

Cloé started to tremble. Her voice was small and distant. “He said his name is Caleb. He’s a p-prophet.”

A tense murmur rippled through the crowd.

“Let’s go upstairs, and you can tell me all about it.” Buffy tried to grab Cloé’s arm, hoping whatever grisly news she had could be shared in private, but the girl pulled away in disgust.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Cloé snarled. “ _You_ let them die! You’re the whole reason we’re dying!”

The girls’ whispering stopped dead as they stared at Cloé and Buffy on the stairs.

Anya broke the silence. “What did this Caleb tell you?” She rolled her eyes at the gawking Potentials. “Look, she didn’t escape because of her skill. If he’s calling himself a prophet, he must have a prophecy.”

“He-he said God left us. We were a disappointment.” Cloé’s voice cracked.

Some of the girls held hands. Some hugged. No one spoke.

Cloé fixed a thousand-yard-stare over their heads. Her face twitched slightly as she remembered. “God left us to The First, his son Lucifer.”

One of the girls squealed.

“The Devil is in charge, and he’s here to remake the world.”

* * *

 

As always, Soo-jin Wook was awake before everyone else. It had been nearly two months since she had left her home in Busan, and she didn’t think her body was adjusting to the time difference. Today she had a special reason to wake first. It was her sixteenth birthday.

No one knew this, of course. Even though she’d studied English for years, she did not feel comfortable speaking it. When she was packing for America, her mother told her this would be good practice, but Wook preferred to keep to herself.

She enjoyed listening and watching the girls. They were all so pretty and lively. After two months away from home, she let herself indulge in dreams of kissing the one with the blue eyes big enough to drown in.

Much to Wook’s dismay, Buffy did not own a rice cooker, so the girl put on a pot of water to boil. Heading to the fridge for pickles, she noticed someone slumped on the backyard bench.

Ignoring the way her heart beat _Trap! Trap! Trap!_ , Wok quietly grabbed a jacket and shoes from the pile and slipped outside. It was a girl on the bench. Small, short dark hair, still in her Winnie-the-Pooh pajamas. It was Cloé, her tan skin ashen. _She must be cold._ But when Wook tapped her foot, Cloé’s stiff appendage didn’t move.

Beside the body was an empty bottle of painkillers and a note which read, “What’s the point of surviving when there can’t be any happiness?”

Wook tiptoed back inside to wake Buffy.

* * *

 

Ten feet and two hours. That was the distance between Buffy and the ghoulish calling card of Cloé’s dead body. They’d had to call the police.

“She has parents,” Giles had said.

So Buffy answered questions about Cloé, her troubled cousin visiting from Oklahoma, until the police were done taking pictures and gathering evidence. Suicide did not merit much investigation in Sunnydale.

Then Cloé was loaded into a bag and taken away.

Buffy was still staring out the back door, still picturing the stiff girl and her hopeless message, when she heard a noise behind her. She turned to find a knot of red noses, blank eyes, and stiff shoulders. Yes, she’d told Dawn to get everyone from the basement. They were looking to her for answers, but she had none.

The crowd of girls, shocked and silent, parted as Buffy headed towards her room. As she ascended the stairs, something flew at her head. Buffy’s hand shot up, catching it mid-air. It was Cloé’s Winnie-the-Pooh.

Glaring at the crowd of girls, she growled, “You want to be mad at me? Fine. I let some girls go do something that would comfort them. I mean, I don’t want to be the bad guy when protecting you from the bad guy! But I’m done with patient, understanding Buffy. I don’t need scared girls. I need soldiers. From now on, no one leaves the house without my say so. No church. No errands. No school. Starting today, we train until our bodies give out.

“Gabi, Lys and the others died because they were caught off guard. They knew they were being hunted and didn’t look for a trap.

“Cloé died because she wasn’t ready to face her destiny.”

“She was scared!” countered Grace.

“So am I!” Buffy shouted, throwing the bear back at the crowd. “Do you think being the Slayer means I’m equipped to deal with the Devil? The _Devil_! I didn’t even know he was real until a few months ago.”

“You knew? You knew and you didn’t tell us?” asked Rona.

“Does it make you feel better to know?” Buffy gazed out at the girls. Rona, Grace, and nearly every other girl looked away when she met their eyes. “I’ve defeated a Hell god, and I have nothing for this. Nothing.”

“Then why try?” asked one of the Australians.

Their eyes were on her again. Not just the girls. Giles and Willow and Xander. Dawn. People who had stayed with her in the hospital. Who had been to her funeral. People who needed Buffy Summers just as much as they needed the Slayer.

“Because trying is what the Slayer is, what _you_ are. It’s not being strong or fast. It’s not memorizing the history of magic or understanding demons. It’s trying when everyone else is running away. Trying is what we offer the world. Now get dressed. We have training to do.”

 


End file.
